Hank Hanegraaff, the “Bible Answer Man” has been sharing bits and pieces of his most recent book “Has God Spoken?” which he calls a “life work”. Based on his knowledge of the scriptures and the research he has conducted, Hank has been inspired to provide written “Proof of the Bible’s Divine Inspiration”. He uses the acronym “MAPS” to divide his book into 4 main sections.
- Manuscript Copies (the means by which the words of the original text have been preserved)
- Archeologist Spade (people, places and specific details found in our bible are being found through historical evidence)
- Prophetic Stars (God’s prophetic word predicting coming events well in advance of them taking place)
- Scriptural Lights (using the proper rules of biblical interpretation using the acronym LIGHTS for literal, illumination, grammatical, historical, typology and synergy principles for biblical interpretation)
Since I became a Christian, I have always been interested in archeology & biblical history . This book provides both areas of interest. Don’t worry, it isn’t a bunch of facts and figures. Hank provides key historical facts and the reader benefits from the authors vast ability of knowing and seeing the scriptures as a whole. A few of the interesting facts that I learned are :
- There are over 5,600 manuscripts of the New Testament that have been unearthed so far.
- The earliest manuscripts found were within a generation of when they were written.
- Even today, we continue to unearth Archeological confirmations of historical records used in the scriptures.
- External evidence (from outside the bible) confirms the Bibles claim that Jesus is the Messiah.
After reading “Has God Spoken”, I have been blessed by the insight provided by the author. He is trying to answer a huge and very important question. Organizing and providing concise, easy to understand points for each of the 4 key topical areas must have been quite a challenge. The author does a nice job with this because I wasn’t overwhelmed with facts and figures. While the topics of Manuscripts, Archeology, Prophesy and Biblical Interpretation are all very important and very different, the author was able to use them together to support his ideas and answer the question he is asking.
The book isn’t difficult to read. I took my time and read bite size pieces so I could digest and ponder all of what was written. I really enjoyed “Has God Spoken” and plan to read it again. I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to see history and His-Story work together in a very real and agreeable way. This would be a great addition to anyone’s personal library.
